Den of Thieves 2: Pantera is the long-awaited follow-up to writer/director Christian Gudegast’s 2018 crime thriller Den of Thieves. The sequel once again stars Gerard Butler (Olympus Has Fallen, The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland) as Sherriff “Big Nick” O’Brien and O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Cocaine Bear, Obi-Wan Kenobi) as the ambitious thief Donnie Wilson and is set after the events of the first film, which saw Wilson pull a huge heist out from under O’Brien’s nose. While the first film was set in Los Angeles, Den of Thieves 2: Pantera promises to tell an international story and bring its primary characters to Europe, and its trailer even teases something of a villainous turn for Butler’s character.
Screen Rant is happy to offer a first look at the poster for Den of Thieves 2: Pantera. The poster highlights key members of the Den of Thieves 2: Pantera cast in Butler and Jackson, even teasing their collaboration in the sequel, and employs a bold color scheme that evokes the dual-sided nature of its story. Take a look at the poster, below, and get ready to watch Den of Thieves 2: Pantera when it hits theaters on January 10.
Heist movies based on true stories are not unheard of, but both Den of Thieves and Den of Thieves 2: Pantera have pulled from real-life events to create a more engaging and grounded story. What feels more unique is that the films have borrowed elements from famous gangs and heists but reworked them into the story that writer/director Christian Gudegast wanted to tell. Den of Thieves was based on an uncovered, but foiled, plot to rob the Federal Reserve, and Den of Thieves 2: Pantera draws lots of inspiration from the 2003 Antwerp diamond heist. Both movies pick up from there, however, changing the year and even the outcome of their inspirations. This storytelling style allowed Gudegast to borrow the best elements of each heist without sacrificing story and character demands.
Den of Thieves also stands apart thanks to its focus on its characters. The film is structured in a way that lets audiences spend plenty of time with characters on both sides of the law, which stands apart from other films that lean into humor and flash to make a heist pop off the screen. During an interview with Screen Rant for the first film, Gudegast even stressed that that work went into building out the character relationships, and it’s likely a similar approach was taken for Den of Thieves 2: Pantera.
The first Den of Thieves was able to use the goodwill it built up toward its characters to full effect thanks to a last-act twist that firmly set it apart from many other films in the genre. With the reveal at the end of Den of Thieves (spoilers) that Donnie had orchestrated the whole heist, the movie stepped out of the shadow of other heist films and forged its own way forward. With Gerard Butler going criminal in Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, it’s clear that the franchise intends to keep finding surprising and unique ways to utilize its characters.
